Loving What You Own

When was the last time you looked around your home with a critical eye? Do you truly love and value the things that you have out in your home? What about the items that you have in boxes?

The things that you keep take up valuable space, whether they are out where you can see them or if you put them into containers and rarely look at them. Too often, we become blind to the items around us, they fade into the background and we do not even think about them.

It is challenging to take that emotional step backwards to evaluate your belongings. Yet, if they are not dearly loved, is there a good reason to keep them?

You deserve to be surrounded by things that make you happy and content. The items that you decide to store need to be valuable to you, worth the space that they require for storage. More and more people are renting storage units as their homes are getting too filled with stuff. Do you want to be one of those people?

I have a memory box for some well loved items from childhood and adolescence. I actually review it periodically and make sure the things are still important enough to keep. It needs to stay a reasonable size though, and I make sure things are worthy enough to be in there.

It can be helpful to think of your things deserving love. This is anthropomorphizing, attributing personality to inanimate objects, yet if you think of it in this context, you could discover how much you are willing to part with. Someone out there would be thrilled to have this or that item from your home and actually need or appreciate it. Thinking about your belongings in this way can help determine whether it is something that is worth saving.

There are so many different options for finding new homes for your things, ways for them to be valued by someone else.

Charities and shelters are often grateful to receive items to support people who are struggling. There are many varieties in each city with their own policies and what items are most needed. You can check out the ones I’ve bookmarked for Milwaukee on my delicious site under donating.

Swap parties are growing in popularity as a way to share and help others in your community. I spoke at the Holistic Mom’s Network and they had arranged one, where the focus was children’s stuff, and toys and clothes were exchanged. Of course, if the goal is to not bring more stuff home, this may not be the way to go about it!

One of my favorite ways to give items away is FreeCycle. Their mission is about reusing and to help keep things out of our landfills, and who does not appreciate that! You need join (free) and make the effort to post your things, but the person you select is responsible for picking up the items. You choose who receives your things and it is obvious that your belongings are going to people who could use them and also likely that they can be re-posted later to go on to someone else who will appreciate them.

I challenge you to try to reevaluate the things you have in your home regularly since our feelings and thoughts about things are constantly changing and evolving. If someone you knew said they would really like such and such, would you mind giving it to them? If so, you likely do not need to keep that item and finding a better home for it would clear up your space in the process.

What are you going to find a better home for?